04-22-08

Genre is what we bring up when we don't have a real critique

Every so often the subject of genres comes up in the forums over at The Webcomic List.  When it does, the general consensus seems to be that people hate them.  Technically, I suppose it's just that some people hate some genres.  And when you really get down to the discussion, it usually turns out that those people don't actually hate the genre so much as they hate certain comics that typify the genres most common weaknesses.

Basically, genre is just a way to describe the general premise of a comic; so, when you say that something is a Furry comic, you should just be mentioning that the comic cast is composed of anthropomorphic animals.  Sadly, much too sadly, many comics never manage to grow beyond their premise, and become true genre comics in all the misery that suggests.

Why am I telling you this?  Because I believe that genre is not, in itself a bad thing.  As long as the author manages to rise above the genre and create a story that supports itself without the limitations of its original premise.

Goblins, by Tarol Hunt and Danielle Stephens, is just such a comic.  I mean, sure, on the face of it you can say Goblins is really just ElfQuest with goblins, or that it's another in a growing list of comics based on the lives and feelings of Adventure game monsters.  But you'd be doing yourself and the comic a disservice if you really thought that was all it was.

Admittedly, Goblins starts well within the genre of its premise.  The bumbling and bickering party marches through the forest and prepares to meet the wisecracking (and bickering) main cast.  But somewhere along that first story, something changed.  Hunt stopped seeing his goblins as puppets in his four-color spoof of gamers, and started recognizing that they could be three-dimensional characters in their own right.  He fleshed them out, and beefed up who they are and why they do what they do.  And he taught them that they don't have to be what the Monster Manual says they are.

And because Hunt began to care about them, so did the reader.  They stopped being wacky little wisecrackers who'll get up after the party is gone, respawned for the next adventure.  They became real beings that had hopes and dreams, that felt pain, and bled, and ultimately died.  No res.  No respawn.  Just that awful silence.

The art is solid and developing.  Hunt owes a lot to Wendy Pini, but he's beginning to develop his own style, and Stephens's colors minimize the impression that Goblins is what ElfQuest would look like if Pini used drafting pens instead of a brush.  There are some issues and inconsistencies, both with the art and the writing, but they are slowly being sanded down by the rough pressure of experience.

If you were only allowed one webcomic, I probably wouldn't say to go with this one, but that's a stupid limitation anyway, and Goblins is worth a look.

Goblins by Tarol Hunt and Danielle Stephens
Updates:  Inconsistently
Caveats:  Graphic (cartoon) violence, moral ambiguity
Rating: